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Saturday, July 16, 2011

E-mealz, my new experiment

Ok so I am always trying to find new ways to help myself out, save money and do good things for my family.

I was looking at new blogs on the web and I found one that I just LOVE. It is Zenhabits. Now that led me to reading back stories which led me to e-mealz.com. Now I have looked at another blog I love $5 dinners. But lets be honest. She couldn't feed my family on $5.00 a meal. I have two teenagers and two tweens and my husband and myself. While I love the concept I just knew it wouldn't work for us. But she does do a meal plan that she posts each week with a grocery list and it is FREE! I love her ideas so please go check it out.

So back to e-mealz....... It is a pay service for a very reasonable price. It is only 15.00 for three months for each meal plan that is only $1.25 a week for each plan but I am not sure this is going to work either.....

I signed up the other night and I signed up for the Kroger and the Publix 4-6 editions. Now we have six people in our family, and I have a Kroger that is very close but I do like to go to Publix. They have been sending me $5.00 off coupons each week for two months and I just love the fresh sushi and their egg salad. So as a treat I like to go there at least once a month.

So these ladies at E-mealz are going to feed my family dinner for an entire week for under $100.00.....well lets see.

Since I started in the middle of the week I decided to pick one meal to feed my family of four tonight (two of them are with my ex). I picked one meal and decided to see just how that would pan out at the store.

I picked Orange Ginger Chicken. Now I will not give you the recipe but I will tell you what is in it.

They suggested 1.5 lbs of boneless chicken breasts they are on sale at Kroger this week for 1.99 a pound. They were 4.34 and 4.94 a package. One package of chicken will feed my family of four (that is three breasts) so I can't just use 3.00 worth of chicken. Last week they were not on sale so I always get extra when they are one sale to keep.

Next item was minced fresh ginger one small piece, they said it should have cost me .50, the smallest piece they had was .85.

It listed 1 tub prepared mashed potatoes as a side, first off my Kroger didn't have the brand they suggested but they did have the Kroger one on sale but not for the same price. Now generally I buy the powdered Idaho potatoes or make it from scratch but this time I thought, I will just play along. No dice, the tub is so small, even though it says five servings, it will not do here, so I had to buy two. Lastly they said green beans, which were on sale as well.

Ok so here is the tricky part......staples, this meal plan does not include the price of staples........

Staples for this meal:

Orange Juice (which is NOT a staple in my house, I never buy it)

Garlic (which is a staple but at 4.00 every time you buy it.....it should count)

Rice Vinegar and Sesame Oil(which I happen to have because my mother visited last month and told me to buy it)

Soy Sauce (Ok I buy that in bulk)

So here is your break down:

Item E-mealz price My price

Chicken 3.00 4.34

Ginger .50 .85

Mashed Potatoes 1.49 5.00 (two tubs 2.50 each)

Beans 1.20 1.20

Orange Juice 0 1.99

Garlic 0 3.99

----------------------------------------------

$6.19 $17.37

Hmmmm, this is not looking so good for me. But I am going to try it for a whole week. Now understand my family situation is different, we have different kids on different nights, but there are so many blended families out there that it should be a norm at this point.

I love their concept, I like their menus (my family will never eat the fish but hey...), so I am going to challenge myself to stick to their menu next week (I will do 50% at Kroger and 50% at Publix) and we will see how it turns out. I am excited to try it. :)